ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the chemical processes involved in combustion, and especially those connected with hydrocarbon fuels. The oxidation of aromatic hydrocarbons is confined essentially to the high temperature regime. In general, carbon dioxide cannot be formed as a final product of hydrocarbon combustion without carbon monoxide being a precursor to it. For the majority of hydrocarbons, considerable degradation occurs and the fuel fragments leaving this zone comprise mainly lower hydrocarbons, alkenes and hydrogen. Although the oxidation of organic compounds leads eventually to carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, fuel-rich flames tend also to produce solid carbon. Since fuel degradation is a prominent feature of flame chemistry, a starting point for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons formation must be a pyrosynthetic route to aromatic rings from small aliphatic units. Many of the simpler bimolecular reactions have similar pre-exponential factors and differ only in their activation energies.
